2. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” —Michael Porter

3. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out” —Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles 1962

4. “Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things” —Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese swordsman

5. “Corporate Social Responsibility should be more than coloring your annual report green and giving a bag of money to your favorite charity in return for some nice pictures” —Jeroen De Flander

6. “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” —Sun Tsu, Ancient Chinese Military strategist

7. “Strategy is thinking about a choice and choosing to stick with your thinking” —Jeroen De Flander

8. “If companies would invest as much time in their strategy cascade as they do in their budgeting process, most would perform a lot better”

9. “From Good to Great is nice, but knowing when great is good enough is even better.”

10. “In many organisations, budget is king. It’s like the Amazon, the source of life. The strategy process is more like a small stream that meanders slowly through the organisation (and if you’re unlucky, the water doesn’t flow at all and starts to smell).”

11. “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”—Sir Winston Churchill

12. “Strategy Execution isn’t something other people should worry about while you are doing something far more important”—Jeroen De Flander

13. “Strategy Execution is the responsibility that makes or breaks executives”—Alan Branche and Sam Bodley-Scott, Implementation

14. “A strategy, even a great one, doesn’t implement itself” —Jeroen De Flander

16. “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” –George Patton

17. “Budgets are like oil tankers – they need time to change course. You don’t want to be left standing on the deck of your oil tanker, watching all the opportunities pass you by unable to stop and turn to chase after them.” —Jeroen De Flander

18. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” —Abraham Lincoln

19. “When working on strategy, pay as much attention to the yeses as to the noes. In more academic terms: you need to know where your trade-offs are. You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.”

20. “Like strategy, innovation is a cool word. Put strategy and innovation in a single phrase and a strategy tourist starts drooling.”

21. “Don’t go for small commitments on big things, but aim for big commitments on small things” —Jeroen De Flander

22. “Dear Executives, execution commitment is not for sale. You have to earn it”

23. “Just because someone said yes to you doesn’t mean something is going to happen. Most of the yeses we get are noes in disguise”

24. “Dear CEO, when you get tired of telling the strategy story line, you have reached three percent of your target population”

25. “You can have anything you want – you just can’t have everything you want” —Anonymous

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About

Jeroen De Flander is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on strategy execution and a highly regarded keynote speaker. He has shared the stage with prominent thinkers like Michael Porter, Costas Markides, Roger Martin, Robert Kaplan & David Norton and helped more than 28,500 managers in 40+ countries master the necessary execution skills.